DSORe POLL s505
| Results of POLL s504 | Results for POLL s504
Should it be legal to pick up road-killed game regardless of the season? YES 58% | NO 33% | MAYBE 0% | UNDECIDED 0% | OTHER 8% IMPRESSIONS: 464 | RESPONSES: 12 | COMMENTS: 2 |
 |
|
Instant Survey: Should the DNR increase overwinter goals for deer by 25% overall? |
|
|
|
| Increased Deer Herd: by how much? | |
|
|
About The Author
25% isn’t enough. As low as the herd is now, we got a long way to go. I wrote about this for this weekend, and if the DNR isn’t going to listen to sportsmen, there are things we can do to help the herd recover. http://www.sheboyganpress.com click on the outdoor tab, and you’ll see my column
Hi Dan, I believe that with the way many private landowners are managing their lands these days (habitat improvements, food plots, feeding) that yes, the overwinter goals can and should be higher in much of the state. I don’t know if 25 percent is the perfect figure, but certainly in many ag areas we can handle more than 20 to 30 deer per square mile of range overwinter. We’re told we have been way over goal statewide for many years, yet the car/deer accidents have plunged the past half-dozen or so years and buck kill dropped to a 25-year-low last year.
Many hunters want to see the “non-paying customers,” the predators, managed more effectively, including fewer wolves, more bear tags and perhaps bounties for coyotes. Deer mean big business to Wisconsin’s economy — and to the DNR’s budget.
Hot spots, including crop damage claim areas, can be dealt with by giving landowners extra tags for antlerless deer and matching interested hunters with those landowners.
I had to vote undecided on the poll as I have little confidence that the DNR even has a firm grasp on the actual herd numbers.